﻿WHAT AN AMAZING JOURNEY! I had no idea the crazy trip a box of old letters found in a junk store would afford me. With the realization that I possessed a unique piece of WWII history in the form of letters written by J. R. Jones, a WWII B-25 pilot, to Elnora Bartlett, his Houston socialite sweetheart, my curiosity drove me to find who these two young people were and what was their role during a world war that encompassed two fronts.

I traveled to many states to do research and talked with the amazing veterans of the 345th Bomb Group who served their time in the Pacific Theater. I attended air shows, asked questions at reunions, read book after book, learned about the music of the 1940s (music that haunts your mind - the actual words of J.R. Jones), and after 4 1/2 years, my first book, Wings and a Ring: Letters of War and Love from a WWII Pilot, was published.

In the process of preserving history and encouraging families to preserve their family heritage, I now find myself labeled a historian. I enjoy telling the story of the 345th Bomb Group through the words of one of their members.

I give programs wrapped around the 345th Bomb Group and the wartime relationship of a soldier and his sweetheart back home. I have spoken to 120 second- graders at an inner-city school, groups of WWII veterans at reunions, NASA retirees who put the man on the moon, social and civic organizations, The National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, TX, libraries, airshows, and various senior groups. I have appeared on the Great Day Houston Show and been interviewed over the radio several times. I also had the privilege to be a featured author at the Experimental Aviation Association's Air Venture Show 2012 in Oshkosh, WI. This is the largest airshow in the United States and I had the honor to be counted among aviation greats like Bud Anderson, a triple ace in WWII.

I also have rare original film footage that was taken by the 345th Bomb Group which chronicles their WWII experience from leaving Columbia, SC, in 1943 to Ie Shima, Phillipines, at the end of the war. This is a 23-minute film taken by their members to shown family and friends what their daily life was like as they went to war. They even playfully poke fun at some of their daily routines and experiences. What a great example of survivor during almost impossible and dangerous circumstances.

Because of their extraordinary contribution to the Pacific Theater and their efforts to push back the Japanese on land, Gen. Douglas MacArthur honored them by requesting the 345th Bomb Group to escort the Japanese Peace Emmesery in the two white "Betty Bombers" from mainland Japan to the island of Ie Shima, Philippines, and then on the return trip back to mainland Japan.

There is never a charge for these presentations. However, if the location is out of the Houston, TX, area, expenses involving travel or lodging are appreciated. If are interested in talking further, please send me an email at: rene.armstrong@comcast.net

My website www.wingsandaring.com contains photographs of the veterans, both during WWII and now at their reunions. The book is available for purchase on that website and I would be glad to autograph or personalize a greeting for you.

Wings and a Ring was selected for Baytown's Sterling Library's "One Book One Baytown" summer read event.

Please read a brief synopsis of the book below:

WINGS AND A RING: Letters of War and Love from a WWII Pilotby Rene' Palmer Armstrong

Romance has a voice of its own. Somehow, it has to be heard over the everyday voice – the trials of making a living and just getting by. Wartime romance is yet another voice that demands to be heard over orders and duty stations, and being sent over there.

Theirs was a wartime romance whose voice was heard fifty-eight years later, crying out to be listened to, demanding that someone pay attention to a long-lost romance. The discovery of the letters in a junk store in Texas City, Texas, was ordained by a dying woman’s profound statement to her daughter: “I hope someday someone writes a book about these letters, because it is a love story that needs to be told.”

When my husband found a box of 295 letters in a junk store, he knew they were a record of something special, but little did he realize just how profound a piece of history he possessed until we transcribed these words into a document. Sitting down and reading the over fifteen-hundred handwritten pages took me on the journey of discovery of a time that was gentler and kinder, even in the midst of war. The time period of 1941-1944 allowed people to fall in love and marry even though they might have only known each other for a few short glorious days.

Enhanced with official, now declassified, government documents, the love story of James Richard Jones and Helen Elnora Bartlett unfolds as he writes to his sweetheart from the jungles of New Guinea.

Thus began a journey to discover who these two young people were who met on a blind date, communicating to each other over three years in the only way that this era could afford – through love letters that encompassed two continents. Held together by a pair of Army Air Force WINGS AND A wedding RING, their promise of tomorrow would have to survive a year of war.

I invite you to read between the lines and see the conflict that J.R. surely felt as he writes of his unending love for his redhead amist the realities of bombs, bugs, and never ending rain and mud. These realities of war can somehow coexist with the gentleness of romance.﻿

FOR MORE INFORMATION, INQUIRE ABOUT PRESENTATIONS, OR TO PURCHASE THE BOOK, PLEASE VISIT THE FOLLOWING:​WWW.WINGSANDARING.COM